


homecoming

by v3ilfire



Series: i fought the war, but the war won [16]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12709008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v3ilfire/pseuds/v3ilfire
Summary: She’d been fighting against thoughts of him all morning as it was. Two years passed, the sky ripped open, and somehow she stumbled into him looking more brooding and terribly handsome than she remembered. Even soaking wet and absolutely, gloriously furious with her, even with a bit of seaweed stuck behind his ear, he was ... nothing short of a dream, really, and she was still as smitten as she was the first time he shoved a hand through a slaver’s heart just to make a point.She reckoned he was about as close to home as she'd ever get.





	1. what's old is new again

**Author's Note:**

> timeline wise i'm just gonna go ahead and say hesta comes home right after the events at adamant because like fuck is she gonna run errands for the wardens

The fear set in on the fourth day of Fenris’s journey back to Kirkwall, the tinny rattle of it loud and constant and, if the ship rocked the right way, just a _little_ nauseating. He had Varric’s letter folded in his cloak, the first in two years that gave him a concrete answer about Hesta’s whereabouts. _‘It’s over,’_ he’d written, _‘she’s coming home,'_ followed by some other arbitrary things that were impossible to process after the joy, relief, and white-hot anger took their turns rattling his head.

Two years of _nothing_. Rumors, mostly, in which she was in Ferelden one day and in Tevinter the next, either partying with Orlesian nobles or being eaten by a dragon (on four separate occasions). Once, a letter from Varric arrived just an hour before he intended to board a boat towards Haven, thinking the Inquisition had finally caught her and held her there against her will to atone for crimes she didn’t commit.

Two years of worrying about the Champion of Kirkwall, a woman either martyred or rightfully executed on the days when she wasn’t hiding in the outskirts of Rivain or secretly advising the Inquisition off the record.

Two years of crumpled parchment and seeing her ghost from the corner of his eye, wandering streets she’d never even heard of and ducking into taverns she’d never complain about.

The scariest thing of all, however, was the persistent sense that Fenris was _forgetting_. There were days he couldn’t conjure her face, or her laugh, or some witty thing she’d said to cheer him up when phantom hands tried to wring the air from his throat. Hesta Hawke was a legend made blurry by time and exhaustion, the sharp downward slope of her nose and her broad stance just uncertainties in his head now. He wondered how much she’d changed, or if she’d changed at all. He wondered if he’d know the difference.

He was different, too. His hair was longer, usually pulled back for lack of will to cut it, and Tevinter made him less prone to sleeves and consequently indifferent to passerby who stared at the lyrium weaving through his skin. He read less but wrote more, his hand more steady and sure with the Common and working through his native Tevene. And when he finally docked, Merrill made sure to inform him that his accent had gotten thicker.

“Oh, but it sounds nice,” she said. Fenris noticed she didn’t trip over her own observation to assert its harmlessness like she used to, and she walked taller now. This older Merrill kept her hair swept up in a beaded clip and returned the smile of every alienage elf who passed her by in the night.

“You’ve been well?” he asked her, suddenly aware of his tongue rounding the harsh consonants of Common.   
“Well, you know how it is,” she sighed. “The work never ends.”   
“Is anyone else here?”  
“Most everyone stayed, actually, I was really surprised -- oh, you mean… well, no. Just me and Aveline.”

Fenris followed her through the dense heat of summer, heavy and sea-drenched even hours after dusk. The docks had recovered out of sheer necessity, even if the same couldn’t be said for Lowtown. Maybe if not for the hole in the sky, warped planks of wood wouldn’t still be covering rubble-blown holes in the sides of homes, and maybe there wouldn’t be quite _so_ many flimsy cloth shelters tucked into alleys.

The Alienage, to Merrill’s credit, was keeping up with Lowtown in a way he would never have expected. Fenris was surprised at his own relief that the Vhenandahl had made it through all the calamity - it meant little to him personally, but there was something assuring about its twists and turns and the rustle of its leaves; something pleasantly familiar about the way Merrill traced her hand along it as she walked past.

They stopped at the entrance to a shabby little shack which was almost comically dilapidated despite the stoop being freshly swept. It was an endearing touch, if useless.  
“I know you’re not fond of the Alienage,” she said with key in hand, just quickly enough to betray her sudden bout of nerves, “but you must be tired from your journey and… oh, Fenris, your _house_ \--”  
“Don’t tell me. I… will look for myself, tomorrow. Thank you, Merrill.”

She smiled, pressed the key into his palm, and left him to his own devices.

He was home, if only in a sense, because the next morning he found out his house was _gone_.

It wasn’t the pile of rubble that he’d been picturing for the last several years. No, a new mansion stood tall in its place, clearly occupied by the type of family that could stay safe and well-off while the rest of the world was being harassed by demons and tragedy. The houses in the vicinity were all new too, with nothing but the quiet gripes of the wealthy to remind him that something terrible had happened here in the first place.

Out of sheer curiosity (or maybe a dash of masochism), Fenris turned on his heel and traced the path he knew better than the backs of his own hands; a path he’d traced in dawn and dusk and darkest night, often alone.

The Hawke estate was gone, too, but no one had built a thing in its place. He’d think it a metaphor, if he was the type.

 

* * *

 

Donnic was in high spirits when Fenris met him. He’d suggested a drink at the Hanged Man at first, but it felt wrong to go there for the first time without the rest of the team, so they met in the Keep, or rather near the beginning of one. The guard barracks were a series of shacks hastily erected and meant to be torn down once the new building was ready, far enough to render the noises of construction tolerable, but not to escape the dust. The entire mile radius was reduced to a chorus of sneezes and watery eyes.

The guards’ improvised mess hall boasted some familiar faces and far too many new ones, but there was one that stood out among the rest. Nug was starting to gray between the ears and around the nose in a way that made him look slightly too dignified to be lying on the floor, waiting for either scraps or ear-scratches from passerby. This regal illusion lasted only until the mabari spotted Fenris, which was when he shot upwards so fast that his broad back slammed into the table he’d been lying under, causing one of the greener recruits to yelp.

Fenris crouched down to receive the hound in some sort of embrace only to be laid out by the sheer force of his joy. Donnic had to pull the dog off of Fenris to let him get back onto his feet, but that didn’t stop him from clumsily nudging the elf towards the nearest bench, his little stub of a tail wagging so hard that it wiggled his whole body. Once Nug was sure that his friend was seated, he sat down and slumped his weight into Fenris’s leg.

Without sparing it a thought, Fenris began absently scratching the dog behind the ears as Donnic got settled across from them. The years had been kind to him, only graying his temples and deepening a few lines on his face. He looked tired, but content, and spoke of Sebastian’s actions with the same easy candor he took in regards to card games.

“The strange thing about the feud with Starkhaven is that nothing ever actually _happens_ ,”he said. “It’s like Sebastian is _pouting_ at us. With swords.” Fenris didn’t find the concept too far out of reach - for all his plays at benevolence, there were still signs of a petulant royal child in Sebastian’s behavior, if one looked close enough. “Just a very long, expensive _pout_.”   
“And of course, Aveline is handling it?”  
Donnic smiled fondly. “That she is. And with Varric in charge, even informally, we can finally redirect our restoration efforts towards Lowtown without opposition. Well, without _much_ opposition.”

Fenris thought of his house. For some reason he thought about Gamlen’s hovel, too.

“Will you join us for supper? We can play cards after, if you’re still any good.”  
For the first time since hitting shore, Fenris smiled. “It’s your coin against mine, my friend.”

 


	2. trust exercises

Hesta listened to Isabela’s strained attempts to toe her fallen dagger closer with a smirk on her face that did not match their predicament in the least, though to be fair, after everything that happened to her over the last several years _tied to the center mast below deck after Isabela’s questionable-at-best crew threw a coup_ was a bit of a relief in comparison.

“I’ve … almost … _got it …”  
_ “By all means, Isabela, take your time. I’m a little tied up at the moment, or else I’d help.”  
“Really, Hawke?”  
“I really _rope_ that we can get out of this in one piece.”   
“I can’t stand you sometimes.”  
“You’re right. The delivery on that one was a bit lacking.”  
“Can you not?”  
“Ooh, that was a good one.”  
“What was a -- oh, _fuck_ off.”   
“Like knot. Nautical knot. Knot-ical?” 

Isabela stopped straining and instead slumped into the ropes. She kicked at the air just inches short of the blade.“You could _help_ , you know. You’re taller.”  
Hesta pretended to consider it for just a moment, but ultimately shook her head. “You know, I don’t think I will. I can’t really feel my arms anymore, which was my big complaint in the first place, so if you ask me this is downright tolerable. Not to mention, _I’m_ not the one who loudly advertised her journey in a seedy pub and hired the shady sailors with a dark past.”   
“In my defense, all sailors are shady and _most_ have a dark past.”

Hesta’s half-formed objection was interrupted by the thunder of drunken footsteps coming down the stairs in the dark. She promptly shushed whatever snide remark Isabela was starting on, and instead tuned into the one-man off-key shanty chorus stumbling in the direction of another cask of wine.

“Which one is that?” she whispered hastily. “I can’t see him well enough to insult him.”   
“Hey, you!” Isabela shouted. The man turned toward them with a scowl. “Yes you, ugly. Just how long are you going to keep us down here? Do you even _know_ who I am? Who _she_ is?”   
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Annoying.” 

Hesta somehow managed to gasp with such affront that it made up for her inability to put her hand to her chest and feign ill. “How _dare_ you speak to us like that. Did you hear him, Isabela?”   
“The disrespect!”   
“The _audacity!_ ”   
“The _insolence!_ ”   
“Why, when I get over there, you’ll know better than to mouth off to _me_ , the Champion of Kirkwall.”  

The pirate, who had been largely ignoring the two, threw a glance over his shoulder. Hesta still couldn’t make him out, but she sure could feel his eyes scanning her from toe to tip. She’d bet a sovereign that he lingered on the scar across her nose. She hoped he couldn’t tell how uncomfortable calling herself _Champion_ felt, even in jest. Those days were long behind her.  
“The Champion of Kirkwall,” Isabela added with a suggestive pop of the brow, breaking Hesta’s momentary trance, “and her _lover_ , Captain Isabela, menace of the Amaranthine Sea! It’s in your best interest to let us go.”

One lumbering step at a time, the man began his approach. Hesta smelled the liquor on him before he came into the thin strip of light pouring in from above. She would have considered him more scowl than man if he didn’t look like someone had dropped an anchor on the head of a regular-sized human and then made up for the difference by stuffing him with meat and pastry for twenty or thirty years. 

He reached for his sword, probably in some attempt to threaten them, but Hesta was faster. Her foot came up quick and rammed itself between his legs first, and once he was doubled over she slammed him down into the ground with another kick.

Isabela was in a celebratory mood about the ordeal until she saw just how easy it was for Hesta to wiggle down just a few inches to kick the discarded dagger right into her boot.  
“You are _such_ an ass.”  
“You’re welcome, _lover_.”

 

* * *

 

The walk to the docks to meet Aveline had been a peaceful one until Fenris and Donnic heard the first explosion. From there, it was a matter of keeping up with the dog. 

A small guard outfit were holding the amassing crowd at bay with just barely enough authority to allow Donnic to lead the way to the waterfront, but the situation was clear even from a distance. The pillar of smoke rising over the water had not yet covered the pirates’ flag flying over the lone vessel in the harbor.

Nug had beaten them to the very edge of the dock, where Aveline stood with her spyglass raised, and nudged the side of her leg with his nose to alert her to the slower two-legged men following his trail as soon as he could reach her. Fenris was happy to see that she was no worse off than the last time he saw her, though still visibly overworked. After all, with no stable Templar order, no Circle, and a Viscount in service of the Inquisition, Kirkwall was in her custody. Evidently something about the arrangement also forced her to shear her hair from her head, leaving just a crop. It suited her.

“You should see this,” she said to him without greeting, and then thrust the spyglass into his hands.  
“Always to the point,” Fenris replied. It was difficult to figure out where on the deck to look through the smoke and creeping fire at first, but then a pirate was kicked overboard through the thick of the smoke, and left room for a glimpse of Isabela. He grinned at the sight of her, clearly enjoying the advantage of cover and more than likely taunting her assailants. 

Fenris lowered the glass to comment, but Aveline pushed it back up towards his face. “No. The crow’s nest.”

He stared at the Guard-Captain instead, waiting for her to give him more direction than that. In all honesty, he was afraid to move; something in him knew, but didn’t dare to hope. Aveline merely nodded in the direction of the boat with a half-smile stuck on her face, and so Fenris forced himself to follow her eyes.

In the distance, a familiar silhouette swung over the siding and in one fluid motion knocked the occupying pirate from his perch. As if in slow motion, he watched her reach for the flag and cut it loose, and when she turned around --

How did he ever think he’d forgotten?

 

* * *

 

Hesta swung the flag over the nearest downwards-sloping rope and grabbed the other end as it rounded back to her. She was vaguely aware that maybe rapelling down to the burning deck below on a flimsy-at-best flag wasn’t one of her best combat decisions, but there were people watching on the docks and there was a part of her that missed making an entrance. After all, you only get one chance at a second first impression. 

Without any further thought to the matter, she set one foot on the edge of the crow’s nest and pulled herself right up and over with the deepest breath she could muster. The smoke burned her eyes, but in the thick of it her boot hit someone square in the chest and forced their body to cushion her fumbled landing. Somewhere to her left, Isabela was _absolutely_ losing her shit.   
“ _Maker_ , Hawke, you should have seen your --” 

Neither of them got to see much of _anything_ when the second explosion went off. What few pirates were left were fleeing the boat along with the rats, now leaving just their betrayed Captain and the Champion of Kirkwall.   
“I’m sure it was truly _see-worthy_ , but we better get out of here. You’d better jump.”   
“What about _you?_ ” Isabela sputtered.   
“I need to find my dog.”

 

* * *

 

As soon as the second explosion rocked the ship and the guard lost sight of both Hawke and Isabela, Aveline began commanding them onto rowboats. Within minutes nearly the entire contingent of present guards pushed away from the docks and began rowing towards the sinking pillar of flame and smoke that became of the ship. 

In Aveline’s boat, Fenris clutched the spyglass with a white-knuckled fervor, unwilling to let go until he saw both women approach the railing of the sinking vessel, and … watched them argue until Hesta pushed Isabela overboard and dove right back into the fire.

Aveline only needed to hear him sigh.  
“She went back, didn’t she.”

 

* * *

 

Hesta pried open the nearest grate and launched herself below deck, honestly just glad to be out of the smoke before she tempted a cold, watery death. The ship was going down _fast_ , and it would take her with it if she didn’t put a little pep in her step. Without further ado, she put both hands to her mouth, and yelled, “Hen!”

From the deck below came a frantic bark and the sound of paws splashing in water. She dove down the nearest steps and hit the ankle-deep seawater of the ruined cargo hold just as a third explosion rocked the deck and sent debris flying down to block her exit. She spared the dilemma no thought, not when the dark grey mabari she’d recently adopted fought so fiercely against the makeshift chain harness that bound her to the center mast.

Hesta shot over crate and barrel to get to her, and immediately took to unraveling the knotted mess that the pirates had left behind.  
“Who’s my brave girl?” she asked the shaking dog, who barked. “That’s right. Don’t you worry, this is nothing. We’ll make it out of this.” 

She cursed as one of the chain links broke and sliced the back of her hand, but that seemed to do most of the trick. The chains fell into the water and the newly-freed dog was quick to wriggle free and joyously knock her owner onto the ground, butt wagging in gratitude.

“Alright, alright, yes, I love you too, but you’re going to have to save a bit of that for when we’re not about to drown.” Hen stopped dead and quickly pulled herself back. Her head tilted with just a little too much worry, and she could only manage the beginning of a little _boof_. “Did I say drown? I meant take a _lovely_ swim to the surface.” 

Hen was not convinced, not when the smell of smoke was beginning to fill in from the top and the water began to rise from the bottom. Hesta sat up and pulled herself to her feet, trying not to think too hard about how low ‘suffocation’ and ‘drowning’ ranked on her list of potential demises.

Luckily for her, across the room she saw a leaking plank ready to burst, an axe thrust into a stubborn treasure chest, and coincidentally, one of her worst ideas yet.  
“I hope you trust me,” she said to the dog. The _boof_ was not convincing.

 

* * *

 

 

Isabela was pulled over the first guard-manned boat that she could reach and offered a blanket before she could even sit. She waved the offer off and instead took to prying her stubborn, squeaking boots from her feet so that she could dump the water overboard and scowl in the sinking ship’s direction. She yelled Hawke’s name, but only received a loud _crack_ in response.   

A few long minutes later, a mabari broke the surface, her pupils wide and black with terror. As soon as she saw people, she began barking frantically.

The message dawned on everyone at once, and before Aveline could begin to translate it into a command, Fenris dove into the freezing waters.

 

* * *

 

Hesta was mostly pissed because all of Kirkwall would see her die. It didn’t really bother her that the city would lose its disgraced hero, but the fact that half the population was already on the docks meant that Varric had almost no room to improvise on a battle far more epic than beating a bunch of drunk pirates and being felled by their burning, sinking ship.

Unfortunately, something had rammed itself _through_ her Maker-forsaken leg, and her chances weren’t looking great in the pitch-black water. When the blue light came she honestly thought it was death finally coming to stake his claim, but the ethereal hand passed clean through the wreckage into its very core, and gripped the steel that had pierced her.  

She felt Fenris grip her leg just below her knee and knew that was her only warning. With zero regard to what little air she had left, Hesta swung her arm to her face and bit down on it as he pulled, and then everything went _white_. Her body treated her to the numbness of shock until somehow, her head broke water and she found herself gasping for air.

There were hands kind of everywhere after that, first pulling her above surface by the arm and then latching underneath her shoulders to pull her over the edge of the rowboat and set her in the bow. She heard Aveline laugh and was about to make some smart-ass comment when the hands were back to put a _painful_ amount of pressure on her wound.

She hissed and sat upright, ready to curse her whole life to the Void before the _look_ Fenris was giving her stole the words. Her eyes went immediately to his hands trying to keep her very flesh closed, though her watered-down blood was leaking between his fingers.

“Talk about getting your sea legs, huh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> varric's biggest regret is missing this moment


	3. mixed emotions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which hesta says things to aveline that she should be saying to fenris and bethany essentially saves the day

The thing about large, gaping wounds was that they were liars of the worst sort. The shock had spared Hesta the worst of the pain until she woke in the dead of night, alone in -- a room, anyway -- her leg burning where muscle had been torn apart, and when _had_ that happened? The last she remembered...

Hesta shot up, head spinning, her lungs cinched with the panic of not knowing where she was. It was hard to pull the memories to surface when her mind was clouded with her own desperate pleas to breathe and keep calm in rapid alternation, trying to figure out why she wasn’t in a tent, or on a boat, or --

Her leg seized and the pain cleared the fog of sleep, letting the rush of the previous day knock the air back into her until finally, she was still, save for the trembling in her hands. She was in Kirkwall, she was in Varric’s suite, she was safe, she was fine, she was -- home, maybe. Bedridden, for sure, though Merrill had done her best to stitch her leg back together. She’d said it would be “a few days” before she was up and around again, but Hesta was sure that the estimate came without a consideration for willpower and a good walking stick.

The unmistakable sound of sleepy paws on the hardwood forced her to squint into the darkness, past what was left of the columns separating the palatial bed from the broad stone table. Nug rounded the corner first, opting to climb over his owner’s torso instead of risking her injured leg. He flopped down unceremoniously, his tail end still on top of Hesta while the rest of him curled around her. Hen was a bit more surgical in her approach, coming from the foot of the bed and then gingerly padding to Hesta’s other side, even going so far as to wriggle underneath the covers.

There was another noise: a quiet shuffling from behind a column that put her whole body on alert, but did nothing for the dogs. Hesta narrowed her ill-adjusted eyes even further, expecting a whole litany of things but seeing only two crossed ankles and one exposed elbow etched with shimmering lyrium.

Fenris, dead asleep upright in a chair. He would be so _very_ sore in the morning.

 

* * *

 

 Fenris woke in the early afternoon with a stiff back and a dull ache in his shoulder where the edge of the chair had left a sharp crease. He unfurled his arms, sleepy and slow, and peeled himself off the column to lean forward onto his knees. A sharp snore to his right alerted him to the presence of _one_ dog… and unsurprisingly, when he turned his head to peek around the column and look for the other, she and her owner were nowhere to be found.

The creak of the floorboard as he pulled himself upright was just loud enough to stir Nug from slumber. The hound rolled lazily onto his legs before leaning back into a mighty, toe-spreading stretch, clearly in no rush to do anything but get his customary morning ear-scratch.

“Some war hound,” Fenris teased as the dog walked over and nudged the crook of his knee with his nose. He was more than happy to oblige the mabari that spent the best years of his life growling at Hightown nobles who so much as _looked_ at him the wrong way. A devoted protector. The Hawke family legacy was apparently a potent one.

The late-morning heat was starting to set in by the time Fenris got cleaned up and slipped into a fresh change of clothes. For the first time since his return, he had time to feel odd about parading in street clothes he bought without haggling with the _liberati_ merchants that fanned themselves under shaded stalls in the outskirts of Minrathous. He no longer felt the need to wear the slave armor to spite a long-dead Magister; instead he dressed himself in simple black pants and leg wraps that kept his street-worn feet bare, and a sleeveless black tunic with a bit of decorative pleating across the middle. The worn red favor was secured around his forearm now, having been too susceptible to damage wear on his wrist or his belt and too precious a hope to hide or discard.

The heat was only slightly less intolerable downstairs, and while Fenris was grateful for Corff and Norah being ready with food for him _and_ the dog, eating hot gruel on a hot morning was not doing much for his disposition. He was halfway through the bowl when it dawned on him that this level of service was a bit above and beyond what was normally expected at Lowtown’s finest establishment.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked in the vague direction of the bar.  
“Hawke took care of it,” Corff replied, toweled hand wrist-deep in a mug. “Said to put everything for you and all the usuals on her tab. Just like the old days,” he added cheerfully.  
“Did she say where she went?”  
“She left with the Guard-Captain this morning.” Fenris hummed his acknowledgement, looking to his gruel for guidance on what to do with that information. 

The day before, Hesta had lost consciousness shortly after they pulled her onto the boat, either from shock or exhaustion or both. It was Aveline who picked her up and carried her to the Hanged Man, Merrill who healed her. Fenris stayed in the lower level of the tavern, sitting side-by-side with Isabela, who wore borrowed clothes and her damp hair in a complicated braid. They carried on about nothing in particular, as if it was any other day. She pretended not to smell the metal in the air, and he pretended not to feel the too-familiar tingle of blood magic against his markings.

When the air stopped vibrating, he rose and made for the stairs. Merrill met him on the landing, told him that Hawke was asleep, that she needed rest, but she’d be fine. Merrill was also the one who noticed that he never returned to the Alienage that night, and came back to the tavern to bring him the bag he had brought into town when he arrived.  
“I thought you might want this,” she’d said. “If you’re going to stay here with her. I was going to pack you some bread too, but then I remembered that there's food here already and Corff doesn't like it when I bring my own. Or when I tell him how to make his taste better.” He had stared at her, unsure of how to answer. Of course he was going to stay. Even with two years of silence between them, he would dutifully sit at her bedside and scratch her dogs behind the ears in turn.

It was the question of what to do _now_ that was growing … difficult to answer.

Nug seemed rather unaffected by his dilemma. In fact, he was downright enthusiastic about the meat scraps in his bowl until he finished them and saw that his elven companion wasn’t done with his meal because he was too busy scowling in its direction. Fenris looked up over his bowl to see Nug sitting on the chair across him, paws set gingerly on the table. His initial reaction wasn’t even his own, but a memory of Hesta’s voice in his head from all the times she would lean towards the dog and ask him with utmost seriousness, _are you people today?_

He didn’t get a chance to process the sudden hollow burning in his stomach that he always got when he missed the woman despite being absolutely _furious_ with her, as just then Nug set one of his paws on top of Fenris’s hand and looked meaningfully towards the pub door.   
“What?” he asked, as if he was going to get a reasonable answer, “There is nowhere for us to be.”  Nug responded with a low _woof_ and a disapproving look. This time, his glance at the door engaged the entirety of his head. More curious than he wanted to be, Fenris left his half-finished breakfast and followed the suddenly eager dog out into the streets.

He had forgotten just how well the Lowtown cobblestone trapped the sun’s rays, the heat sharp even on his thoroughly calloused feet. Nug was not keen on trotting outside cast shadows either, and even then he didn’t make a habit of setting any of his paws down for too long. Their only relief was the sea breeze blowing in the closer they got to the docks, but Fenris could hardly feel it for the sudden pang of fear in his gut. Why the _docks?_

She wasn’t -- she wasn’t leaving again, was she?

Hesta had no discernable reason to leave. Fenris tried to calm himself with thoughts of whatever other business the docks housed, but he couldn’t think of a single person with a keen enough interest in Kirkwall’s legal imports and exports that would drag him down here. There was also the business of arrivals, but as far as he knew Varric was still busy with the Inquisition, Sebastian was still busy being offended, and Anders was … off, somewhere, being an abomination and a thorn in someone else’s side.

He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed Nug find a perch atop a crate until the hound caught his tunic and pulled him back to his side. Now in his apparently rightful place, the dog merely sat and wagged his stub of a tail, both eyes trained on the docked ships. Fenris was just about to follow the dog’s example when the full force of someone’s entire body nearly knocked him off his feet and then pulled him into a tight embrace.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you,” Bethany muttered into his shirt, and suddenly Fenris remembered how hugs worked. At arm’s length she looked no worse for wear, if a little older and leaner than he remembered, but in a way that reminded him more of Lendra than her older sister (and consequently, as he was assured, their father). Like Aveline, she cropped her hair, but she did not wear weariness as plainly on her face as the rest of them.  
“It seems time has been kinder to you than most,” he noted. Bethany waved the sentiment off.  
“I suppose that depends on your definition of _kind_. I’m just glad I can stop running for the first time this -- well, ever.”  

Bethany did not need to be prompted to then devote her full attention to the family dog who seemed to compensate for the fact that she was not fond of slobber by leaning his entire weight into her as she came over to hug and pet him.  
“Has Hesta arrived yet?”  
“She has,” Fenris answered, perhaps trying a little _too_ hard to seem nonchalant about it. Bethany raised a single curious brow, waiting for him to continue. “She’s with Aveline. Is that odd?”   
“Not at all,” she lied. “Come with me to the Hanged Man to drop off my things. You can tell me about all the trouble you got into in Tevinter while we walk.”

 

* * *

 

The Chantry erupted from the core.

The light of old Tevinter magic painted the windows red before it began to move the structure apart stone by stone, row by row. An ungodly, inhuman screeching filled all of Hightown just before the blast threw everyone in the Gallows square back, and —

“You don’t _have_ to be here.” At the sound of Aveline's voice, Hesta snapped out of a two-year-old trance and pried her eyes away from the rising scaffolding around the new Chantry building.   
“And miss this?” she said, gesturing to the chaos in front of them.

Nug gave up his recruit-chasing privileges that morning to give Hen a taste of the joy that running around after a bunch of grown guards had been giving him for years. Evidently Aveline’s new stock didn’t anticipate the difference between an old mabari and a young pup who seemed to be powered by the sun in a way that no other Fereldan ever had been, and most ended up quickly mowed down and covered tip to toe in mud.

“Well,” Aveline sighed, “at least the mud will cool them off.”  
  
Hesta snorted. If there was one thing she didn’t miss about Kirkwall, it was the daily decision between blistering sunburn and sweating buckets underneath a long-sleeved shirt. She chose the sunburn that morning, her exposed shoulders already a little pink despite her best efforts to stay in the shade. The other thing she didn’t miss was the sick feeling that hadn’t left her since she set foot in Hightown or the way her stomach lurched every time someone whispered about the _Champion_ as she passed by. That was pretty rough, too. 

She tried to remind herself of lighter things, happier times, sunshine and rainbows and whatever else, but somewhere between losing Bethany and her mother, her memory began to fade into a fog. Four very, _very_ long years just… gone. A blur, for better or for worse, capped by an explosion.  

Aveline came to the rescue again. “Two years. I don’t even want to ask what you managed to stir up unsupervised for that long.”  
“Oh, the usual. Saving kittens from trees, charming widows, helping orphans. Popped by the Inquisition for a spin to say hello to Varric, and now here I am.”  
“Is that it?” Dear, skeptical Aveline.  
“Depends on what you’ll do if I tell you the truth.”  
“I make no promises, Hawke. But we were all worried.” 

Ah. The worry card. Hesta leaned back on the shack wall that shaded the two of them and crossed her arms.  
“I went to Orlais to turn myself in.”  
“ _You what?”  
_ “I never made it. Ended up all over Ferelden just trying to outrun the Templars, accidentally took a tour down memory lane. Our house in Crestwood is under a lake now, the farm outside Redcliffe burned down when the rebellion began, and Lothering … well,” she shrugged, “it’s still Lothering. I didn’t get close enough to look.” Aveline’s shock receded to pity, which was arguably worse. To think Hesta put all her effort into sounding casual about the entire ordeal.

“I should go,” she finished. “Looks like Hen’s got a handle on your guards. Just bring her back to the Hanged Man when she’s done chewing on them.”  
Aveline nodded. “I can have someone walk you back to Lowtown.”  
Hesta eyed the Chantry one last time. “It’s alright. I’ll make my own way. It’ll take forever anyway.” 

Hesta plucked the cane she was forced to rely on for the time being from the wall and hobbled away from the compound. Past the Viscount’s Keep, the layout of Hightown and its many narrow alleys and wide open courtyards remained largely the same, which was useful in trying to avoid her ancestral home. According to Bodhan’s letter, it had withstood the explosion… somewhat. Long enough to let him, Sandal, and Orana escape into the chaos and flee Kirkwall on the same boat as Gamlen.

But now, it was gone. Part of her hated how relieved she was; it never felt like _her_ home. Had Fenris’s mansion not been quite _so_ damp and drafty, she would have chosen to spend most of her time there instead of a house that became a living monument to everything she lost. She still thought about the day they moved in, when her mother stood at the door of the bedroom Bethany had claimed and wept. When she mounted Carver's sword in the great room as the gravestone he never got. 

 _No, it’s gone,_ she reminded herself, and kept moving. The last thing she needed was to go from thinking about her old estate to thinking about the fact that Fenris was the only one who made it tolerable for her to be there. Something she was recently reminded of in the dead of night, when his presence was enough to soothe her into a rare restful sleep.

She’d been fighting against thoughts of him all morning as it was. Two years passed, the sky ripped open, and somehow she stumbled into him looking more brooding and terribly handsome than she remembered. Even soaking wet and absolutely, gloriously furious with her, even with a bit of seaweed stuck behind his ear, he was ... nothing short of a dream, really, and she was still as smitten as she was the first time he shoved a hand through a slaver’s heart just to make a point.

She reckoned he was about as close to home as she'd ever get. 


	4. the truth

Fenris hadn’t realized how much he missed Bethany until she was sat across the table from him, attentive and righteously supportive of his violent interference in the Tevinter slave trade along the southern border, even if she cringed at some of the gory details. A war came and she was still kind and as reserved as a Hawke could be, but now her eyes steeled at the mention of slavers and she responded to most of his tales with a  _ rightly so _ or a  _ as you should have _ . If Bethany’s newfound conviction had come three years earlier and found a way to pair with her sister’s blades and absolute disregard for her own well-being, Fenris wagered there wouldn’t have been a rebellion to flee from in the first place.

“What about you?” he asked as he felt his material grow redundant. “Surely you have your own stories to share.”   
Bethany shrugged. “I stayed in Gwaren. You saw what they were going through. They still haven’t recovered from the Blight, and needed a healer. A lot of the mages who wanted to avoid the fighting fled there but only a few of them knew how to handle anything more than a simple cut.”   
Meaning she did what Hawkes always did. “So you lead them.”   
“I did no such thing,” she protested. “I helped organize.”  
“Right. Of course.” 

She’d lead them; if he hadn’t seen the beginnings of her influence when he made the trip, the small but self-satisfied smile that involuntarily crept across her face would be evidence enough. Fenris was proud of her, both for doing what she did and for giving herself credit. She’d come a long way from the reserved, self-sacrificing mage he met in a the Alienage all those years ago.

He was about to tell her too, but the thought disappeared in the loud  _ bang _ across the room. Isabela had slammed the tavern door open with all the bold enthusiasm her body had pent up throughout the day, Bethany’s name at the top of her lungs and her arms spread wide. Bethany made to stand, but froze as soon as she realized that she was in a room with other people, all of whom were first staring at Isabela but were now staring at her. Unphased by the attention, Isabela shot across the tavern and scooped her into an embrace. Moments later, Bethany found herself held at arms’ length for inspection. 

“You’re here!”    
“I am!”    
“You’ve cut your hair!”   
“I did,” Bethany said, self-consciously reaching up to sweep the front of the crop to the side. “Do you like it?”   
“I  _ love _ it. I  _ hate _ that you haven’t aged a day.” At that point, Bethany was allowed to sit back down. Isabela slunk around her and flopped into the chair between her and Fenris, though frankly he may as well have been invisible. “Tell me everything.”  
  
Bethany looked at Fenris, trying to figure out how to avoid the retelling. Isabela finally turned to look at him as well, then immediately shoved his shoulder. “Don’t give me that look, I’ve already seen you. She’s shiny.”  
He shoved her right back. “I see it only took one day for you to grow bored of me.”   
“I’m not  _ bored _ of you, I’m just way less interested in anything about you right now. Don’t take it personally.”   
“I won’t.”   
“Good. Go get us a drink.” Fenris obliged. She was doing him a favor, anyway; if he timed it right he’d be able to skip what he already knew and be back just in time to hear something interesting. He could use the laugh, and Isabela’s shamelessness was always good for it. 

He only made it halfway to the bar, though. The door opened again and there she was, covered head-to-toe in black, her cheeks and her shoulders a little red from sun. A group of workers sitting by the door called her name but she looked just as lost and breathless as he was. 

And then Bethany ran past him at a dead sprint, tripping over chairs to go and hug her older sister, not expecting Hesta to fall and bring them both to their knees on impact. Their joyful reunion was cut short the moment Bethany understood that her sister had been up to no good at the cost of her own health once again.   
“What did you  _ do _ ?”   
“Now, is that any way to greet family?” 

Isabela leapt out of her chair to go and help Bethany drag her wounded sister over to the table, and somewhere in the quiet hubbub of the move a potent nausea seized Fenris. Without saying a word, he ran outside to catch his breath in the hot summer air. 

 

* * *

 

“Gwaren, of all places.” 

Hesta watched Bethany unwrap her injured foot with the steady hands of a war medic. She had all of three seconds to fully feel the harsh pang of guilt before some sixth sense of Bethany’s kicked in and drew her attention to whatever pathetic face she must have been making.   
“I  _ volunteered _ , Sister.”    
Hesta nodded towards her feet to pull Bethany back to the black and blue and crimson mess of a wound that still very much made a hobbling mess out of her. Merrill had done a fair patch job in terms of sealing up a hole, but it was still very much bleeding and … oozing. Oozing was never good. And it  _ smelled _ . 

Relatively unphased, Bethany reached down to the washbasin she’d set on the floor and wrung out the rag. “I boiled some prophet’s laurel in this. It might sting a little.” And sting it did.  As soon as the rag pressed to the bottom of her foot, Hesta had to actively focus on keeping her leg still while the rest of her body violently contorted in some effort to both disappear into itself and sink into the mattress at the same time.    
“Maker’s soggy forsaken asshole charred in the flames of mount  _ fuckshit _ \--”    
“You’re such a baby,” Bethany chided. At some point her hand had locked down on Hesta’s shin to keep the leg still while she gently swiped the rag across the wound. 

The pain did, eventually, recede into a tingling numbness, leaving Hesta lying perfectly still on the bed, hands folded across her stomach while she stared up at the cross-beams that held up the patchy, beaten ceiling over Varric’s giant bed. Bethany was equally silent and arguably more focused; eventually she let the rag sink into the now sullied basin with one final splash and, judging by some blue flickering light coming from beyond Hesta’s one bent knee, she was ready to switch to magic. 

“I stayed in Gwaren because I thought you’d want to come find me.” Maybe not as focused as she thought. “I was surprised when Fenris showed up alone, looking for you.”   
“Looking for  _ me _ ?”   
“Don’t sound so shocked. He was worried. We all were.” Hesta could feel the muscles in her foot shifting, a squirmy feeling that she blamed the sudden nausea on. “I need you to tell me where you went.”   
“It’s a long story.”   
“You’ve got a big hole in your foot. I have time.” 

Hesta heaved a deep, tired sigh. 

“Alright,” she said, and told her sister everything. 

 

* * *

 

Aveline dragged Fenris and Merrill back to the Hanged Man later that night, evidently because there was something they had to hear. Had she been more explicit in her instructions, he may have stood a chance against the sight of Bethany hunched over a table, still trying to piece together everything she had just heard. Crestwood. Highever. The Bannorn. Redcliffe. Honnleath. Lothering. Back to Redcliffe, only to end up on the Orlesian border and turn around when the sky split open. Just halfway through her winding retelling, he gave up on trying to unclench his jaw despite the stirring pain in his temples. 

Isabela drew her mug closer to her with the arm that wasn’t draped around Merrill’s shoulders; Aveline was still rubbing the bridge of her nose. Bethany’s recounting of her sister’s tale felt so out of place set against the Hanged Man’s nighttime band and rambunctious drunks, but it had to be told. Isabela had spent two months at sea with her and got no answers; Aveline only got the the intent, not the end or the means.

And none of them had known just how close they’d gotten to never seeing Hesta Hawke again. 

“Where is she now?” Merrill asked. She sat slumped onto the table, her thin wrist just barely supporting the burden of her head.  
“She’s resting upstairs. I think talking about it tired her out.”   
Aveline scoffed. “I’ve heard attempted martyrdom has that effect.”  
No matter how angry she was, Bethany came to her sister’s defense. “She wasn’t well. She thought it was the only way to keep us all safe.”

Fenris looked down, past his crossed arms and to the exact spot where his shirt covered a fading scar on his stomach; a stab wound he took the night before she disappeared. She had been careless enough to leave her back wide open and he too eager to risk himself to save her — neither right in their methods looking back, but that warranted a conversation, not a  _ suicide quest.  _

He needed to know the truth of what she had been thinking two years ago. About the Exalted March, about the rebellion, her culpability. All of it. So he stood, muttered a quick  _ excuse me, _ and headed for the stairs. 

“Don’t be too hard on her,” Bethany called after him, but she was overpowered by Isabela’s, “Kick her ass!”  Truthfully Fenris had no intention of doing either; he had no real desired ending to this situation. He spent the chunk of two years having imagined confessions and arguments and reunions with the woman, but now as he was padding barefoot up the stairs to confront her, he lacked the words to do any of those things.

To make it worse, she was asleep when he made it to the landing. Peacefully curled up, resting. Part of him longed for a time when he could slide under the covers with her and not even think twice about whatever sleepy, wonderful thing she would mutter into his neck before closing her eyes again, but he needed answers before he could even think about working their way back to what they were. 

Fenris crept across the floorboards and sat himself at the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the covers. It took a disproportionate amount of strength to lay a hand on her shoulder and give it a shake.  
“Hawke,” he said, hoping he sounded more firm than he felt. As he expected, she didn’t budge. He shook again. “Hawke, wake up.”   


The bed groaned and the covers began to wriggle, and then much to Fenris’s dismay. Nug’s head emerged from the covers where Hesta’s knees should have been. His jaw fully locked into itself when he rolled back the covers to find Hen’s head on the pillow. Both dogs blinked sleepily in his direction, waiting for some sort of command.  All they got was one huffy elf booking it in the opposite direction. 

 

* * *

 

In all fairness, Hesta had been trying to take a walk. She didn’t even  _ really _ sneak out of the Hanged Man so much as she just walked out while no one seemed to be paying attention, and then turned quickly in the opposite direction when she saw Aveline, Fenris, and Merrill round a corner. She had a pretty good idea about why they were all suddenly gathering when her explicit instructions from a bleak-faced Bethany were to ‘get some rest.’ 

It was probably cowardly to run from their reactions, but it wasn’t like she was going to go very far. She just needed… well, maybe time was too much to ask for all things considered, but at least  _ air. _ Somewhere in the middle of trying to avoid all the bleak, bloody details of her traipse across Ferelden and Bethany prying them out of her anyway, she heard herself tell an even sadder story that she already knew. 

Her father, too, had set out to fix a mistake he did not make and could not fix, except she made it back and they found him dead of Blight outside Lothering. And so all day, she fought the same kinds of thoughts that drove her away in the first place: that she would trade her safe return for her father’s, for Carver’s, that she did not deserve to be home or among her friends, and blah, blah, blah. Over time she got better at dulling all the chatter to white noise, but being back in Kirkwall made everything so, so loud again. 

So, she needed time, but she couldn’t ask for it. Just had to hobble for it.

It was a peaceful walk until it wasn’t, which followed the usual pattern of her life. Deep in the Lowtown alleyways, far away from any passerby, she found herself jumping back from a sudden burst of flame that ran along across her path and then dissipated out of sight. A young man cursed around the corner and said, “I think you fucking hit someone.” 

Being an absolutely incurable meddler, Hesta emerged into the crossroads and turned towards the voice, leaning nonchalantly on her cane. “Now where did you boys get a toy quite like that?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion of 'cane vs fire sword (vs glowing elf)'


End file.
